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Charles-Antoine St-Jean / Basia Ruta / Sylvain Michaud

Thursday, November 26, 2009

In the economic stimulus package context, billions of dollars
in payment will need to be processed within a short period of
time. What is the appropriate level of control, the level of
errors or fraud? Who take precedence, the Politic or the
OAG? A panel discussion of senior managers from key
departments will discuss this issue.

Charles-Antoine St-Jean is the
National partner for Public Sector in Canada for Ernst & Young
and member of the Global Public Sector Council for Ernst &
Young. He is currently advising many clients at the federal and
provincial levels in Canada and abroad on public sector issues of
governance and risk management, and helping develop the global
public sector capabilities of Ernst & Young.

Prior to rejoining Ernst & Young in the fall of 2007, he
served as the Comptroller General of Canada for 3 years where he
led the rethinking of the Finance and Internal Audit Functions. He
dealt with all financial management issues that the national
government deals with, ranging from fiscal management issues,
control frameworks of large programs, capacity constraints, risk
management, standards settings and many more.

Prior to serving in the federal public sector, he worked with
Ernst & Young and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young as partner and
vice-president, and earlier on in various capacities, in Canada and
abroad for close to 30 years. Over the years, he worked with
clients in the public sector, not-for profit, technology,
telecommunications and banking sectors. During that period, he was
also seconded twice to federal Crown Corporations to work in a
financial management capacity.

He received his FCA designation from the Ontario Institute of
Chartered Accountants in 2006. L'Ordre des Comptables Agréés du
Quebec granted him the same honor earlier this year . The UK
Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy recently
awarded him the honorary designation of CIPFA for his body of work
for advancing the cause of financial management in the public
sector. Last year, the FMI named him a life-time honorary member of
the Institute.

Since
January 2006, Basia Ruta has assumed the position
of Assistant Deputy Minister, Finance and Corporate Branch for
Environment Canada (EC). As part of her role, she is EC's Chief
Financial Officer and the single point of accountability for the
financial management of the Department ─ an over billion
dollar-a-year funded organization. In addition, Ms. Ruta is
responsible for ensuring proper stewardship over assets,
contracting and EC's environmental management as well as for
programs and processes supporting the department's governance,
values and ethics regimes.

Ms. Ruta was appointed Assistant Comptroller General in December
2004. Among her key achievements was developing a new Policy on
Internal Audit that is viewed as transforming internal audit across
government, and leading edge for governments world-wide.

Ms. Ruta obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree (B.Comm.), Honours
(Spec. Accounting) from the University of Ottawa. She is also a
member of the Ontario Institute of Chartered Accountants, and has
over 26 years of notable business experience.

Sylvain Michaud is the Executive Director of
Operational Auditing at the Office of the Comptroller General
(OCG), Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. As Executive Director,
he is responsible for providing functional leadership and direction
for horizontal audits led by the OCG.

Sylvain joined the Government of Canada in 2001 as Director,
Internal Audit, at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In his
position as Director, Sylvain oversaw the development and
implementation of a multi-year audit plan. In 2008, Sylvain became
the Chief Audit Executive for Public Safety Canada where he
established an internal audit function.

Prior to joining the Government of Canada, Sylvain worked as an
external auditor and a consultant in the field of risk management
for various accounting firms in Ottawa, and as a manager in
Internal Audit for the Bank of Canada.

Sylvain holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of
Ottawa. He is a Chartered Accountant and a Certified Internal
Auditor.